


in the lonely hour

by avinguda



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: M/M, past Lewis Hamilton/Nico Rosberg, post-2018 season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 09:13:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20356033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avinguda/pseuds/avinguda
Summary: And Lewis finally gets it—can't not get it, when just two years ago he'd been in the exact same place; being handed a second-placed trophy that weighed as heavily as it had been worth nothing at all, replaying all the mistakes he'd made throughout the season in his head, over and over and over, thinking about where he could've been faster, where he could've been smarter, where he could've been better; thinking aboutwhohe'd lost it to, about how losing it stacked up against all the other things he'd already let slip from out of his grasp.(or: Lewis wins the Championship; Sebastian doesn't. They both gain more than they ever bargained for.)





	in the lonely hour

**Author's Note:**

> ohhhh man. i started writing this at the end of 2018, literally at the point when this fic starts, picking it up on and off, and now it's been over half a year and it's still in my drafts!! and i'm so sick and tired of staring at it in some failed attempt to make it better!!! so apologies for what this is and what it turned out to be but i have to post it now or i'll drive myself crazy!!!!
> 
> **warnings for:** misunderstandings galore. also, (bad) sex. also also, (bad-ish) nico for your everyday, run of the mill, brocedes toxicity lol. (in all seriousness, there's a lot of borderline things implied that i'm not quite sure what to tag, so please do read at your own discretion if you love nico lol)

Lewis doesn't pay him any mind, at first, doesn't even recognize it's Sebastian—he could just chalk it up to the moustache, that he's not used to how it looks, but it's also something else: the fact that he's just sitting there, a few ways off from the bathroom entrance, nursing a drink in his hand, alone.

"Hey, man," Lewis says when he passes by, extends a hand out to him in greeting. "You hiding out here?"

Sebastian blinks at his open palm for a bit before taking it, but even then his own hand's sluggish, his grip slack. It's the drunkest Lewis has seen him in quite some time, but he doesn't think much of it considering the occasion, considering Kimi, considering that he doesn't actually see much of Sebastian outside of race weekends, when they're not drinking unless they're standing on the podiums, unless they're winning.

"That was the plan," Sebastian says, voice surprisingly steady, straight, compared to the hand he puts up in surrender, the crooked smile stretching across his face. "But I guess I've been foiled once again."

Lewis doesn't really know how to take that, what he really means by it, so all he does is laugh a little and say, "Don't worry, I'm heading back to the hall anyways so you can still—"  
  
"No, no," Sebastian cuts in, waves his hand in dismissal before patting it against the empty space of seating beside him in invitation, "Stay. Save yourself from the pointless mingling," and then he pulls Lewis down by the arm, just a gentle tug, doesn't actually give him much of a choice either way.

They sit together in silence for a while, only the sound of the orchestra filtering out of the main hall between them, their knees brushing against each other every time Sebastian taps his feet, staggered and off-tempo; almost as if he's restless, more than he is listening to the music.

"Any big plans for the break?" Sebastian asks, eventually, but laughs before Lewis can even think of his answer. "Sorry. Pointless mingling question."

"It's fine," Lewis says, even though he's thinking the same thing, even though he'd already told everyone what he'd be up to, back at the post-race press conference in Abu Dhabi. But something about Sebastian right now makes it seem like he wants the small talk, almost _needs_ it, so he obliges and says, "Just gotta finish up a few more sponsorship commitments, spend some time with my family for the holidays, and then I'm off to New York to lay low for a bit before the grind starts back up."

"Lay low, huh?" Sebastian says with a small smile, brows raised. "Is that even possible for y—in New York?"

Lewis doesn't miss the sudden change in direction, the _for you_ Sebastian had intended to end the question with, but he just shrugs it off, doesn't take it as a slight; Sebastian likes to tease a lot, likes to push at people's buttons, but he's never been one to do it out of malice. "I mean, better than being out in the open in London, right? And if nothing else, I just bought a new condo there, so hopefully that throws anyone off my scent just a little bit."

"Might just be delaying the inevitable," Sebastian says, and that's odd, coming from him, how negative that sounds, but Sebastian's been acting oddly ever since Lewis walked up to him and it's starting to throw Lewis off a bit, doesn't know how to talk to Sebastian when Sebastian's usually the easiest person to talk to amongst anyone else on the grid.

"How about you? Where are you laying low for the break?" Lewis asks, although what he really wants to know is if Sebastian's alright; if he will be.

"Just at home, in Switzerland," Sebastian says, swishes idly at the champagne inside his glass. "Doing nothing, really."

When Sebastian doesn't elaborate, Lewis says, "That's good, though, isn't it? More time for some R&R?"

Sebastian lifts his drink up to his lips, takes a lengthy sip, and underneath the rim of glass, Lewis can see his smile turn a little brittle. "More time to think, also."

And Lewis finally gets it—can't not get it, when just two years ago he'd been in the exact same place; being handed a second-placed trophy that weighed as heavily as it had been worth nothing at all, replaying all the mistakes he'd made throughout the season in his head, over and over and over, thinking about where he could've been faster, where he could've been smarter, where he could've been better; thinking about _who_ he'd lost it to, about how losing it stacked up against all the other things he'd already let slip from out of his grasp.

Lewis gets how isolating, how near suffocating it is to be left alone with those thoughts, how long an already shortened off-season can stretch for when it's just him and the worst of it all, but it still comes as a surprise to him when the first thing he thinks to tell Sebastian is, "You can come visit me in New York, if you want."

Even more surprising, though, is that Sebastian actually shrugs, smiles, says, "Okay."

Lewis doesn't believe it'll happen until he's standing in the parking lot of JFK, hands deep inside his coat pockets, watching Sebastian walk towards him with a small luggage bag in his hand and a grin on his face, looking slightly rumpled from being on a plane for ten hours but otherwise unscathed.

"Had a good flight?" Lewis asks, once they've clasped hands in greeting, not knowing what else to say. They're not friends, certainly not close enough to hang out like they're doing now, but sometimes Lewis feels like Sebastian's the only one who really gets it, and Lewis would like to think that it's the same for Sebastian, too, so maybe that's all that really needs to be said, in the end.

"As good as flying a red-eye can be," Sebastian says, sounding better than he did a month ago, more like his usual self, but up this close, Lewis can see just how tired he actually looks, more than a long flight should warrant. "So. Is this how Lewis Hamilton lays low?"

Lewis follows Sebastian's gaze to his Mercedes SLS behind him, chuckles a little sheepishly. "It's my only car with some kind of trunk space. And it was either this or the LaFerrari in New York, so."

"Can't complain much, I suppose," Sebastian says, already walking forward to load his luggage in the boot, so Lewis doesn't get to gauge how exactly he looks like, how sincere he is, when he says, "I've ridden enough Ferraris for now."  
  
The drive to his condo is mostly silent, just some small talk here and there. When they've exhausted all the topics they usually cover, Sebastian takes to fiddling with his stereo system, going back and forth between radio stations before settling on one, looking none too happy about it.

"The radio today is terrible," Sebastian huffs, gesticulating wildly at his set-up like it'd done something personally offensive, like ask him to make an Instagram account, or insult his driving. "One good song and then nothing but garbage."

Lewis laughs. It's both expected and unexpected to him, somehow, that Sebastian turns out to be a complete music snob. "I could put on one of my playlists."

"Please," Sebastian says, but he's smiling now, too, as if realizing how petulant he'd been sounding. "If I hear one more Ed Sheeran song, I might just have to pull the emergency brakes."

"Hey, watch what you say about my boy Ed," Lewis reproaches jokingly, fishes his phone from out of his pants pocket and hands it over to Sebastian. "You pick a song, then."

Sebastian scrolls through his music catalogue, making small comments beneath his breath, until he seems to reach something he likes, brightening his whole face in pleasant surprise. "You listen to Kettcar?"

Lewis shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "Not much." _Not anymore_, is what Lewis actually means, but doesn't say. "What I have from them's old."

"But their old stuff is the best," Sebastian says, starts playing one of their songs, like he's proving a point. "How do you even know of Kettcar?"

Lewis taps his fingers against his steering wheel, takes a few moments to answer, and even then he doesn't look at Sebastian, keeps his eyes straight on the road. "Nico introduced me to them."

"Oh," Sebastian says softly, just that, _oh_, but it sounds more than that, like he's figured something out about Lewis that Lewis hasn't even realized about himself, and Lewis doesn't like that. "How is he? Nico?"

"Wouldn't know, really," Lewis says shortly, and that's the truth as much as he is just deflecting with, "Are you hungry? We can pick something up on the way."

Lewis can feel Sebastian's stare against the side of his face, sharp and scrutinizing. Still, all he says is, "What do you recommend?" and Lewis' shoulders relax automatically, the way they always do whenever he's taken back a lost lead.

"Depends," Lewis says, takes a right into a familiar road, already thinking, forces himself to think, of a place to go. "Do you want something healthy or unhealthy?"

"Aren't you vegan?" Sebastian says, eyebrow cocked, "So do I really have a choice?"

"Vegan doesn't always mean healthy," Lewis says, relieved to have a change in topic that he can actually talk about at length, if need be. "You'd be surprised at how many other things besides meat you can deep fry."

There is none, though, because Sebastian just laughs, says, "Keep on surprising me, then," and settles back in his seat, changes the song from Kettcar to something more upbeat and mainstream and doesn't make another attempt to speak.

In the end, Lewis takes him to his favourite pizza place in SoHo, where they grab two boxes—a vegan one for him, and a Meat Deluxe for Sebastian (_It's the off-season!_ Sebastian had said as justification, to which Lewis couldn't really argue against). He gets recognized once by someone else in line, but the guy has the decency to be at least a little subtle about it, only asking for a picture when they're already away from most of the other customers, just waiting for their orders to be made on the other side of the store.

"Here," the guy says, handing his phone over to Sebastian, who he either doesn't recognize or doesn't care for in the slightest, judging from his abrupt and dismissive tone. "Take a picture of us."

It puts Lewis off a bit, enough to want to pull out of the photo, but Sebastian takes it all in stride, even looks incredibly amused at the whole situation, exclaiming, "Say no to cheese!" when he clicks the camera.

"Sorry about that," Lewis says, once they're back in the car, the smell of bacon quickly filling up the small space. "It's kind of true, New Yorkers can be quite blunt sometimes."

"Not a big deal," Sebastian says, taking Lewis' box out of his hands to place it securely over his lap as Lewis starts the car. "It's nice to know that at least _I_ can lay low in New York." Sebastian cranes his neck against the headrest of his seat to flash him a teasing smile. "Maybe once I retire, I move out here, eh? Be your official photographer instead?"

Lewis backs out of the parking lot and into the main road, laughing. "Hopefully not any time soon," he says, "I want to keep facing you on the other side of the grid rather than behind a camera."

Sebastian doesn't respond to that for a while, stays quiet for a couple blocks too long, and Lewis begins to wonder if he'd said something wrong, but eventually Sebastian says, "So, no to me becoming a reporter for der Spiegel next season either?" and draws out another incredulous laugh from Lewis.

"Definitely not, you'd give me hell in the press conferences," Lewis says, shaking his head with a smile, "But I guess it wouldn't matter what I think for that one, anyways."

"It would, actually," Sebastian says, casual and offhand, in the same tone that he'd said all of his other jokes, but it also sounds kind of serious to Lewis, so he's left with not much else to say after that. "Where to next?"

It doesn't take long for them to reach his condo, thankfully, and within ten minutes, they're riding the elevator up to his floor, Lewis holding onto both boxes of pizza as Sebastian drags his luggage behind him, and suddenly it hits Lewis how absurd this all really is, that he's spending some of the last few weeks of his winter break with _Sebastian Vettel_, of all people, here in New York.

"Nice place," Sebastian comments, after he gives the penthouse a quick once-over from just outside the elevator doors. "Very you."

Lewis isn't sure if that's a good or bad thing, coming from Sebastian, so he ignores it, sets the pizza boxes down on his kitchen counter and starts rummaging through the fridge for something to drink. "Do you want some wine?"

Sebastian raises a hand in refusal, not looking away from whatever it is he's inspecting against Lewis' receiving room wall. "Not tonight."

Lewis takes out two plates from the cupboard, pours himself a glass, then two, can almost even pretend that Sebastian's not there from how quiet he is, until he's padding his way over to the kitchen, grabbing one of the plates that Lewis had set like he's right at home, like this isn't the first time they've really seen each other in any capacity outside of racing, much less eaten dinner together in one of Lewis' condos.

Lewis loves all of his friends from outside the sport, appreciates all of the different perspectives they bring to the table, but he's forgotten how nice it is to spend time with someone in Formula 1, someone who understands what it's like without having to be told about it word for word. It's probably the thing he misses about being with Nico the most, when all is said and done; the tacit companionship.

"Why lay low in New York?" Sebastian asks, grabbing two slices of pizza to put on his plate. "Why not Monaco?"

Lewis smiles at the irony, takes a slice from his own box and refills his wine glass for a third. "I think you just answered why yourself."

"True," Sebastian says, chewing all the while. "But I mean, don't you want to spend some time back at home?"

Lewis could say a lot of things to that, like, _Why? Home should be there for you for the rest of your life, so might as well enjoy the rest of the world while you still can_, or, _You're not home right now either_, or even the truth, that his residential base being in Monaco wasn't what made it home to him, never was, but all he says is, "I don't know. Guess I've just never been much of a homebody."

"Oh no," Sebastian says, pizza slice hanging comically in mid-air. "Does this mean that I'll be going out everyday that I'm here in New York just to get the full Lewis Hamilton experience?"

"The Lewis Hamilton experience?" Lewis repeats, laughs. "What is that, a tour package?"

"No," Sebastian says, "It's more of an instruction manual, _What To Do To Prepare To Win The Formula One World Drivers' Championship_. Only less wordy, so it is easier to say."

Lewis snorts. "As if you don't already know how. You've got four yourself."

Sebastian smiles, but it doesn't hold any of the mirthfulness Lewis is accustomed to seeing from him. "Most people tend to think I've forgotten."

It should be comforting, to see someone else take the brunt of the criticism Lewis has had to face since the beginning of his career, to have the bullshit of the press affect another driver's psyche for a change, but Lewis sees the defeated slump in Sebastian's shoulders and the exhaustion marring his face, and all he can really feel is that familiar anger that's always brewed within him whenever any of those headlines break, that he just as equally and uncontrollably hates.

"Don't listen to them," Lewis says, much rougher than he expects, "Half of them don't and won't ever know shit about what it takes to actually compete for a championship."

If Sebastian's taken aback by Lewis' vehemence, he doesn't show it, just seamlessly reverts back to joking around when he says, "Lesson one of the Lewis Hamilton experience?" and although Lewis prefers that over any awkwardness, it's also strangely…disappointing.

"Maybe," Lewis says, finishes his pizza slice and drains his wine glass clean in one go. "Come on, let me show you where you're sleeping."

He leads Sebastian to one of his guest bedrooms, orients him to the bathroom and all its features, hands him some extra towels and linens just in case. Halfway through his makeshift tour, Lewis notices that Sebastian's stopped listening, has taken to standing in front of the floor length windows instead, staring out at where the winter sun's almost completely set behind the skyrise buildings of downtown Manhattan.

Two thoughts cross Lewis' mind at once: that Sebastian really does look striking bathed in red, and that for the first time since Lewis had picked him up from the airport—since the night of the gala, maybe even since the last legs of the season—Sebastian looks to be at peace.

Lewis steps quietly out of the room, not wanting to disturb him, but Sebastian catches him just when he's a foot out the door to say, "Hey, Lewis? Thank you."

Lewis doesn't entirely know what Sebastian's thanking him for, if it's for showing him the room or for what he'd said earlier or for something else, but it doesn't matter; Lewis says, "Any time," means it for all, and earns himself a brilliant grin for it as he closes the door.

Lewis wakes up with a wine headache the next morning; not exactly hungover but bad enough to fog his mind up a little bit, to need an aspirin. He walks out of his room to get one from the kitchen, but bumps into Sebastian in the hallway before he can reach his destination.

"There you are," Sebastian says, sounding much fresher than he did last night, than Lewis feels, than what should be appropriate for the early morning. "I've been trying to look for you, but you have too many doors to knock on in here!"

Lewis blinks. He'd almost forgotten that Sebastian was here in New York, staying at his apartment. "Sorry, I forgot to tell you where my room was last night."

"No worries," Sebastian says, swats at the air with his hand. "But hurry, the breakfast will go stale soon."

"Breakfast?" Lewis blinks again, but Sebastian's already walked ahead of him, leading the way to the kitchen like he owns the whole place.

There's a few dishes prepared on the counter when Lewis follows after him; eggs and toast, chopped fruits, a couple bowls of oatmeal. Lewis didn't even realize he had any ingredients left for a decent meal in his refrigerator, but it looks like a serviceable enough breakfast, and his stomach grumbles in agreement.

"I hope you don't mind that I prepared something," Sebastian says, rounding the counter to head over to Lewis' coffee machine, where there's a pot already brewed. The clock right above it tells Lewis that it's not actually early morning anymore, but already quarter to noon. He wonders if Sebastian had slept in as well, and if not, what he'd been doing the whole time Lewis was still asleep. "But I got hungry, and I didn't feel like eating leftover pizza."

"It's fine," Lewis says, sounding a little unsure to his own ears, still finding this all a little surreal. "I was actually gonna ask you if you wanted to go grocery shopping today, since all I have here is vegan stuff."

"The eggs were not half bad when I tasted them," Sebastian says brightly, like he relishes the discovery, walks back over with a mug of coffee in his hand. "But I don't think I'll be converting to them any time soon."

Lewis laughs, but cuts himself short when a sudden throb of pain sears through his head. "Fuck."

"Profanity so soon after waking up, tsk, tsk," Sebastian tuts in faux disappointment, but his voice softens when he asks, "Are you okay?"

"Just the wine from last night kicking in," Lewis answers, remembers what he was originally there to do and finally grabs the aspirin bottle from his medicine cupboard. "More like kicking my head in, actually, but I'll live."

"Good," Sebastian says, reaches an arm out, and for a moment Lewis thinks he's going to ruffle his hair, pat his cheek, something, but he drops it back to his side midway and just gives Lewis a small smile instead. "What was that you were saying about grocery shopping?"

They go to Whole Foods, once they've cleaned up after they eat, Sebastian insisting on driving since he thinks Lewis is too out of shape for it. "I promise not to spin your car into the barriers," Sebastian assures him, obviously a joke, but for some reason Lewis doesn't find it as funny, his head still hurting too much to force a laugh, so he doesn't.

When they get there, Sebastian complains a lot about the price markups, disregarding Lewis' explanation that all the products are organic and thus costs more, and they get stopped once or twice for autographs—both of them, this time, which Lewis is certain will probably be a PR nightmare, if it ever gets out—but it's nice, for the most part, almost even fun, and Lewis feels fully recovered by the time they go to self-checkout, enough to feel up for doing what he actually planned for them to do today.

They drop off their groceries back at his condo, and then Lewis takes his keys back from Sebastian, tells him, "Let's go."

Sebastian, having just barely sat down on Lewis' couch, looks to Lewis in confusion. "Where?"

"You'll see," Lewis says, purposefully cryptic, but Sebastian just shrugs and stands back up, walking out after Lewis with no further protest.

The Brooklyn Street Circuit's closed for the winter, so it's pretty empty when they arrive, just a few maintenance workers milling about at the far end of the track. Lewis watches the late afternoon sun reflect off the tarmac, breathes in the faint scent of rubber and oil, thinks back to what Sebastian had said last night, about not wanting to spend time at home; thinks, this _is_ home, whether it be in London or Monaco or even further along the edges of the globe.

The way Sebastian looks beside him, an excited smile blooming on his face, Lewis can only presume that he's thinking the exact same thing.

"How long have you had this planned?" Sebastian asks, voice holding a private quality that Lewis recognizes but can't name, and he gives Sebastian the respect not to try to.

"Just last night," Lewis says honestly, but skimps out on the exact reason why, "I just felt like it all of a sudden, and since you're here—"

"You wanted to see who's really faster in equal machinery," Sebastian teases, and that's part of it, Lewis can admit, but it's not the most important one.

"What are you talking about? The Ferrari was so much better this season," Lewis says instead, and when Sebastian gives him a look of dumbfounded disbelief, Lewis can't help but bark out a loud laugh. "Oh, man, you should see your face!"

"I was really about to hit you for a second there," Sebastian says, and that only makes Lewis laugh even harder. "But I'm glad to know you are not actually serious with the underdog nonsense you and Toto always try to pull."

"Mind games, Seb," Lewis winks, and it feels good to be able to finally joke about it, knowing that Sebastian doesn't actually play that way, not like—and Lewis stops himself there, won't do him well to get into comparisons. "But c'mon, are we gonna talk shit or are we gonna race?"

They rent some karts and helmets from the garage, the type they used to ride when they were children, just bare bones of an engine and a chassis. The store owner Lewis had called in for the favour looks on at them with wide eyes the whole time he helps them out, knowing exactly who they are, and Lewis knows for sure that this'll get out, but he can't bring himself to care; it's just him, his car, and Sebastian on the other side of the grid, adrenaline coursing through him like how it does during Sundays on race weekends, and there's no better high or feeling that compares.

"R-remember to pull the brake early so that—" the owner stammers, trying to explain the mechanics of the kart, to do his job, but Lewis tunes him out, doesn't listen; neither does Sebastian, evidently, because he starts his kart without so much as a signal and almost leaves Lewis lagging behind.

"Cheat!" Lewis yells out as he tries to catch up, doubts that Sebastian can hear him through his helmet and the roar of their engines, but Sebastian raises a finger in the air and wags it in provocation, and Lewis translates that to mean, _Game on._

So Lewis does; stomps down harder on his gas pedal, flooring it, gets his kart side by side with Sebastian's just when they're about to reach the hairpin, but Sebastian blocks the inside off and defends his position. Lewis tries to overtake him again on the next straight, pushes faster and faster, and the kart's barely under Lewis' control at this point but that's how he's always liked it, how he's always gotten the best out of his cars, so he leans into it and pushes even more, almost reaching, almost succeeding—

But Sebastian brakes earlier than Lewis expects him to, than he had in the earlier laps, and Lewis crashes into the back of his kart as a result, ends up spinning down the road.

"Fuck," he says, once he's inspected himself and found that he was lucky enough not to topple over or get anything worse than a seatbelt burn. "That was close."

And then he remembers Sebastian, and something like dread pits in Lewis' gut, has him frantically unbuckling himself from his seat and throwing his helmet off his head, running to where Sebastian's crashed into a wire fence, his head lolled down, arms slack against his sides, not moving—not _moving—_

Until Lewis gets close enough to see Sebastian's whole body shaking, to hear his unbridled laughter, and Lewis near collapses down to the ground in relief as Sebastian takes off his own helmet to continue cackling like a maniac.

"Fuck you, man," Lewis says, picks up the dirt beneath his palms and throws it at Sebastian. "It's not funny, I thought you were seriously injured!"

Sebastian dodges it expertly, proving that he really is physically fine, at least, if not mentally all there. "But I'm not! I've just managed to escape with my life!" he says, and laughs some more.

"Stop it," Lewis says, getting annoyed now. "You could've really been hurt."

"But I _didn't_," Sebastian emphasizes, finally settling down, wipes off the tears that'd formed in his eyes from his laughing fit before smiling down at Lewis. "What doesn't kill you makes for a good time, is not how the saying goes?"

"Oh, yeah, that's definitely it," Lewis snaps sarcastically, irritation not yet wavering, but Sebastian finally picks up on it and doesn't say anything else, just hops off his kart and sits down beside Lewis on the track, pressed against him shoulder to elbow to wrist, and soon enough Lewis can feel his pulse slowing down, syncing with Sebastian's static beats.

When the initial shock's worn off and it's sunken in to Lewis that there was ultimately no harm done, he brings himself to say, "That was fun, though, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Sebastian says, knocking his knee against Lewis'. "I haven't had this much fun while racing in a long time, honestly."

And Lewis feels good, probably too good, that he could be able to do that for Sebastian, but more than anything he just finds it sad, proves his suspicions about Sebastian right and what his mindset had been coming into the off-season, coming here to New York.

"For what it's worth," Lewis says, "I always have fun when I'm racing against you."

Sebastian smiles self-deprecatingly. "Only because you always beat me."

"No," Lewis stresses, and for as much as he's trying to make Sebastian feel better, he also means it unconditionally, too. "Because you're the only one who keeps on challenging me to be better, week in and week out."

Sebastian doesn't say anything for a minute, just looks on at Lewis with an unreadable expression on his face, and then he says, "I don't think Valtteri would be too happy to hear you say that."

Sebastian's starting to look like he is, though, or at least Lewis thinks so, and right now, to him, that's all that counts. "That's not what I meant."

"I know," Sebastian says. This time, when he reaches his arm out between them, he follows through, knuckles Lewis' cheek gently to the side, and maybe Lewis imagines the part where his hand seems to linger along his jaw, but why he would, Lewis doesn't know.

"Mr. Hamilton! Mr. Vettel!" the garage owner calls out from down the track, and Lewis is saved from having to think about it for long. "Oh God—are you guys alright?"

"We're good," Sebastian says, pushes himself off the ground with both hands before offering one to Lewis to help him up. "But I'm afraid I can't say the same for your karts."

Lewis takes it, but lets go the very moment he's back on his feet. "Yeah, sorry about those, man."

All in all, there's actually not that much damage to either of their karts, so they manage to wheel it back into the garage with no issue. Sebastian apologizes again for the both of them the whole way back, but tells the owner conspiratorially at the counter, "You'll charge all damages to Mr. Hamilton's credit card, right?"

"Uhm," the owner says nervously, still clearly both starstruck and shaken up by the crash, so Lewis spares him the extra anxiety and says, "He's joking." He pays for everything anyways.

On the drive back, Sebastian talks a lot—about the bike he's working on at home, about the winter festivals happening right now in Germany, about nothing and everything that crosses his mind and line of vision. Lewis can barely get a word in edgewise, but he doesn't mind; he finds that he likes seeing Sebastian like this, relaxed and unguarded, almost giddy, likes getting the chance to get to know Sebastian the person as well as he does Sebastian the driver, Sebastian his rival.

"I am telling you, that is the most Kimi's talked in four years of being teammates!" Sebastian says, capping off a story about drunk Kimi during the FIA gala with a laugh and a face-splitting grin. "I was already in bed and about to sleep, and he was still texting me about changing the rules for next year so that all drivers only race with one out of four wheels."

There's fondness in Sebastian's eyes, genuine affection in his voice as he speaks about Kimi. It makes something pang in Lewis' chest a bit, something close to regret, envy, but he forces those feelings to the back of his head and says, "You'll probably miss him a lot, huh?"

"The team will be more boring without him, for sure," Sebastian says, and then, as if he'd read Lewis' mind, "Do you miss Nico?"

Lewis tenses, but still manages to keep his tone light when he says, "I think that's a little different."

"Because you were together?" Sebastian intones, though it doesn't sound like much of a question, which is all just as well; Lewis doesn't have much of an answer.

"Valtteri's been great," is all he says, fiddles with his earring and pushes the gas pedal close to the speed limit, just something to do with the sudden restlessness in his hands, his feet, "We get along well. No issues."

"It must get lonely like that sometimes, though," Sebastian says, looking out the window, but Lewis doesn't get what exactly he means by it, so Lewis just stays silent and focuses solely on his driving.

That night, when he climbs back in bed, Lewis has a hard time falling asleep, starkly aware of the coolness of his sheets, the space beside him vast, empty.

In the morning, Lewis goes down to the gym while Sebastian's still sleeping. There's no one else there, probably because it's too early, so Lewis puts his music on blast, loud enough that he can't think, and he does a couple of miles on the treadmill, twice the minutes on the weight machine, pushes his body to the brink of its capacity. It still doesn't do much for the inexplicable itch settling beneath his skin.

When he gets back to his unit, Sebastian's already up, sitting in front of the TV. It looks like he's watching some race highlights from last year, but Lewis doesn't know which one until he sees Sebastian's Ferrari careen into the gravel, hears the break in his voice when he speaks on the radio with his team. Germany.

"Awake already?" Lewis says from behind him, and Sebastian startles, switches the channel to something else before turning it off entirely.

"Jetlag," Sebastian smiles, pretending like nothing's happened, and Lewis lets him. "What about you? Where did you run off to leave me trapped in your apartment?"

"I didn't purposefully trap you here," Lewis laughs, making his way over to the kitchen to grab himself a Gatorade. "I just went to the gym, and I thought I'd be back before you woke up. I didn't think you'd be up so soon."

"I'm usually an early riser, even without the jetlag," Sebastian says, stands up from the couch and stretches his arms above his head, shirt rising slightly to reveal a strip of pale skin that Lewis catches just as quickly as he averts his gaze from it. "Anyways, wake me up the next time you go. We'll work out together."

The way Sebastian says it, doesn't ask, leaves Lewis with not much else to reply besides, "Sure." 

"Though I might not get in as much reps as you," Sebastian says, walking towards Lewis, eyes raking down his bare torso, slow and deliberate. "Oh, well. I will be there to motivate, if nothing else."

Lewis crosses his arms over his chest, trying to—he doesn't know what he's trying to do. "I dunno, man, you might pip me on the treadmill. I'm bad at sprints."

"Me also," Sebastian says, leans his hip against the edge of the counter, mirroring Lewis' stance. Up this close, Lewis can see Sebastian dart his tongue out briefly to wet his lips, the tousle in his hair from lying on it in his sleep. He realizes that Sebastian's shaved, just a five o'clock shadow covering half of his face. "But you'll be there to motivate me as well, so who knows where that pushes me."

"Who knows," Lewis says, and then clears his throat, turns around to putter inside his refrigerator once more. "What do you wanna eat for breakfast?"

When Sebastian doesn't answer, Lewis turns back around, and Sebastian's right there in front of him, crowding his space, backing him up against the fridge door.

"I'm not really hungry," Sebastian says, but he doesn't look it, looks the exact opposite. "Lewis?"

"Yeah?" Lewis says, mouth dry, and he doesn't know who makes the first move but suddenly they're kissing, Sebastian pushing Lewis' hips harder against the fridge door with his hands on either side, and Lewis is surprised at what's happening just as much as he feels like it was only a matter of time.

Lewis threads his fingers in Sebastian's hair, grinds up against him, makes Sebastian groan into their kiss before breaking away to bury it into the crook of Lewis' neck.

"I smell like the gym," Lewis says regretfully, and he feels Sebastian's laugh against his skin, followed closely by his tongue, so he guesses he doesn't mind all that much.

"Showers, then," Sebastian says, licking his way back up to Lewis' lips, tasting like salt and sweat and the coffee he'd probably drank before Lewis' return. "Come on."

Sebastian tugs him by the ties of his shorts, leads the way into Lewis' room with a familiarity that would be concerning, if Lewis wasn't too preoccupied with trying to take off Sebastian's shirt.

"Hold still for a second," Lewis says, getting frustrated, but Sebastian just laughs again and takes it off himself.

"Better?" Sebastian asks, and Lewis' only answer is to kiss him until he's no longer smirking, until he's groaning against Lewis' mouth again like he did before.

Once they reach Lewis' bathroom, Sebastian pushes Lewis up against the shower wall with a hand to his chest, runs it down and over his nipples until they're hard and aching beneath Sebastian's thumbs.

"Fuck, Seb," Lewis pants, wanting to speed things along, but Sebastian's stronger than he looks and keeps Lewis in place, holds off any attempt by Lewis to take the upper hand by pinning him against the wall with his hips. "Hurry, come on—"

"Must you always win?" Sebastian says, a mixture of exasperated and amused, and Lewis wants to say _yes_, wants to say _you do too_, but it's not the right time for that, if there ever really is, and Sebastian kneels down to the ground, besides, dragging Lewis' shorts along with him to curl his tongue around Lewis' cock.

Sebastian starts off slowly, carefully, only going halfway for the first couple of strokes. It's enough to drive Lewis crazy, his hips bucking up of their own accord, trying to go further, faster, deeper, but Sebastian digs his fingers into the flesh of Lewis' thighs, effectively holding him off, and Lewis can't help but think that he's trying to make a statement even though he doesn't know exactly what.

And then suddenly he's not thinking at all, because Sebastian's swallowing him whole in one go, and Lewis can feel himself hit the back of his throat, can feel every thrum and tremor of the effort of Sebastian trying to hold him in, and before long Lewis is coming inside Sebastian's mouth with barely enough time to warn him.

"Sorry," Lewis croaks afterwards, embarrassed, but Sebastian just spits into the drain behind him before turning on the shower faucet to wash it all away.

"It's okay," Sebastian says, voice hoarse, and for as ashamed as Lewis is of himself, it's also probably the hottest thing he's heard in a good while.

Sebastian still has his pants on, the hems of both legs getting soaked in the shower spray, and Lewis can see the outline of his cock, straining underneath the thin fabric. Lewis tugs at where he's already holding Sebastian's hair, trying to pull him up, and Sebastian follows without anymore challenge, trailing open-mouthed kisses along Lewis' stomach as he does.

"Want to fuck you," Sebastian murmurs into the shell of Lewis' ear when he gets there, low and hot, making Lewis shiver, but he also pulls away just enough so that he's looking Lewis in the eye when he asks, "Can I?"

Lewis stares at him, thinks it's ludicrous at the same time that it is kind of sweet, that Sebastian still even has to ask after what he's, what they've, already done. He'd become so used to bruising grips and scraping teeth and a hand on the back of his neck to press him against the wall by his cheek that this is all a little bit unsettling, that Sebastian won't just wholly take after already being denied what he wants in the Championship, that he won't dominate or claim victory over Lewis in this, in any other way that he can. It's what Nico always did, every year that he'd lost; it's what Lewis would've done, too, maybe, if he'd have gotten the chance.

"Yeah," Lewis nods, breathless, doesn't let himself think about it any more, about anything other than the want cresting back up in his gut. "God, yes."

Sebastian grins down at him, "So enthusiastic," but before Lewis can speak out in indignance Sebastian's already slipped his tongue past his lips, and he's proven right anyways when he slides a thigh in between both of Lewis' and Lewis starts rutting up against it desperately.

"Easy," Sebastian murmurs against his lips, skims a hand down Lewis' side, past his hipbone, below the tail of his back, and then just stops abruptly. "How long since you've done this?"

"Does it matter?" Lewis snaps, because he's insolent enough to, impatient enough to, and because two years is a long, long time to admit.

Whatever it is Sebastian reads from that, it doesn't matter either to Lewis, because Sebastian's hand starts moving again, cupping one of his cheeks, and then he's parting them aside to sweep a thumb back and forth over his opening.

Lewis bites at his lip, trying to swallow the keen he feels building, but Sebastian kisses him hard and milks it out from deep in his throat, a ragged, choked-off sound as Sebastian tries to ease a finger inside him.

"Relax," Sebastian says, laughs softly, infuriatingly, when Lewis only clenches around him even more. "This will go better if you breathe, you know."

"I am," Lewis says, although he doesn't really feel like he is. "Just—keep going. I can take it."

"Doesn't mean that you should," Sebastian says, eyes dulling into something like concern, and Lewis hates that, doesn't know what to do with it, so he pulls Sebastian's hand out by the wrist and brings three fingers into his mouth, wets them with his own spit before guiding them back down between his legs, pushing two up inside him, all at once.

It does the trick; Sebastian's eyes go dark in an instant, heavy-lidded with raw desire, and it doesn't even take Lewis a minute of riding Sebastian's fingers before Sebastian's thrusting them in himself, stretching Lewis open with the two already inside him before inserting a third.

"You make it so hard," Sebastian mumbles into his hair, and there's a joke in there somewhere if Lewis was in any mood to laugh, but it sounds unfinished even to his own blissed out ears that he's sure Sebastian meant something else with it, something completely different, and Lewis doesn't get to find out because then Sebastian's saying, "Tell me when you're ready," and Lewis couldn't care less about it.

"I'm ready," Lewis says, the words almost tripping over themselves in their eagerness, but Sebastian no longer seems to be in any mood to laugh at him either, simply leans his forehead against Lewis' temple as he pulls his fingers out to draw his sweatpants down, pumps his cock a few times in his fist before sinking inside Lewis right up to the hilt.

It burns, Lewis can't deny it, but more than anything it feels fucking amazing, and the way Sebastian keeps whispering broken German into his ear makes pride flare up inside Lewis, that small, wretched part of him that had been pleased about Sebastian losing control of his car in Germany, in Italy, in Japan, swelling at the fact that he can make Sebastian lose control like this, too. It's only there for a second, but a second's already one too long, and Lewis immediately feels terribly about it, tries to chase the thought away by rocking down against Sebastian, urgent and matching every drive of his hips.

"Lewis," Sebastian says, and Lewis is back to being fully hard again, painfully so, but Sebastian's got his hand on him before it can even truly register, jerking him off at the same pace as his fucking, bringing him undone. "_Lewis_."

And Lewis can't take it, all of a sudden, can't take the way Sebastian's saying his name—tender, in drawn out syllables, with no other purpose except to say it because it's all that's occupying his mind—and Lewis only has time to brush his mouth briefly against Sebastian's before they're falling apart, trying to draw in as much air as he can as he comes into Sebastian's palm.

Sebastian fucks him well into his afterglow, head burrowed in the juncture of Lewis' neck and shoulder, lips ghosting over his collarbone, and Lewis can tell that he's close when his hips stutter wildly, losing the hard precision of his strokes. Lewis is just a passenger, at this point, but he kneads the heel of his palm between Sebastian's shoulderblades, thumbs at the dimples that form, helps him along with little touches here and there until Sebastian's pulling out to come on Lewis' stomach, slumping half against him and the wall.

They stand like that for Lewis doesn't know how long, the shower water beating against Sebastian's back, a couple of droplets bouncing off of him to hit Lewis on the face. He can smell himself; the sweat from his workout that he still hasn't washed off, the spit on Sebastian's fingers when he places them over Lewis' pulse, Sebastian's come dripping down his skin, white and sticky. It makes Lewis lightheaded, the realization that he's just had sex, of who he's just had sex with, but he stops himself before he can really delve into the why of it all.

"You are thinking too loud," Sebastian says, still muffled against Lewis' neck, but he raises his head up right after to smile at Lewis, lazy and intimate, but it only makes Lewis even dizzier, has his breath catching in his throat. "Hey."

"Hey," Lewis manages to say right back, meeting Sebastian's gaze straight up, thinks of it as a win, if only to snap himself out of whatever trance it is he's sunken into. "Look, man, not to kick you out after—but I really do need a shower."

Sebastian laughs, can probably feel the jump in Lewis' pulse underneath his fingertips. "Stop beating me to things already," he says, and Lewis is too tired, too fucked out, to read into it, so he doesn't bother. "I was just getting to that."

They shower together, Sebastian massaging his fingers gently over Lewis' scalp, Lewis running his hands all over Sebastian's body with soap. They make out languidly during points in between, nothing too intense, but Lewis still finds it to be too much, too soon after a while and pulls away to finish cleaning off by himself.

Afterwards, when they're dry and halfway clothed, Sebastian holds Lewis back by the wrist, firm but not caging, asks, "Hey. Are we good?"

Sebastian's chest is flushed pink from the warmth of the shower, the remnants of their fucking. Aside from that, though, there are no marks on his skin, a blank slate. Lewis likes it.

"We're good," Lewis says, raises the arm Sebastian's holding to press a chaste kiss against the back of Sebastian's hand, leaves the bathroom before he can see how Sebastian reacts.

The next three mornings are more of the same: Lewis goes to the gym, not waking Sebastian up, comes back to find Sebastian already awake, cooking breakfast or reading the newspaper or looking out at the Manhattan skyline; never watching the TV, always drinking coffee from Lewis' favourite mug, the one he brings with him everywhere, the one with Roscoe and Coco's picture printed cheaply on the ceramic that's now starting to chip off. Sebastian scolds him for not waking him up to take him to the gym, and Lewis is barely a word into his rehearsed apology before Sebastian's pushing him up the counter, the table, the window, hands scrambling at the garter of his shorts to suck him off.

During the rest of the day, they think of places to go in the city, fruitless planning because they always end up staying in. Lewis introduces Sebastian to online SimRacing, which they're both somehow terrible at, and they get demolished by a couple of teenagers whose vocabularies don't seem to consist of anything more than a few select racial slurs.

"Disgusting," Sebastian says coldly, lip curled, looking angrier than Lewis had seen him on track, after any other avoidable loss, than anything Lewis can muster himself at this stage of his life.

"I'm used to it," Lewis shrugs, which he is, truly, but he'd be lying if he said it didn't still bother him at times, so he doesn't say so. "Seriously, man, let's just play something else if you're gonna get this upset over some dumbass kids."

"How can you—" Sebastian says, voice rising, outrage bubbling just beneath the surface, but maybe he sees something in the look Lewis gives him because he immediately shuts up, closes his mouth, hooks one leg over Lewis to straddle him, says, "You're right. Let's play something else," and kisses him until he forgets about anything else besides Sebastian's mouth, Sebastian's voice, Sebastian's warm, calloused fingers wrapped around his cock.

On the fourth morning, Lewis comes home to a quiet apartment, Sebastian nowhere in plain sight. There's breakfast laid out on the kitchen counter, just like always, but Lewis is worried all the same, wondering where he could've gone, and then he hears a soft scream coming from the guest room, and Lewis takes off in a run.

Lewis' heart drops when he gets there, but not out of anything other than overpowering want: Sebastian's lying on the centre of his bed, naked, lower lip caught between his teeth as he runs his hand down the length of his cock, flushed red and gorgeous against his pale stomach.

"Jesus," Lewis breathes out, and Sebastian looks up, the same lazy, effortless smile on his face that he always gives Lewis after they fuck.

"No," Sebastian says, letting go of his hold on himself, cock swinging tantalizingly between his legs as he shifts on the bed to sit up. "Not Jesus. Just Sebastian."

Lewis shakes his head; he's come to realize, these past few days, that for all the jokes that Sebastian gracefully lands, there's an equal amount that fall just a tad bit too short. He doesn't mind it as much as he used to before.

"I thought we got broken in, or something," Lewis says, trying to keep up the pretense of being annoyed, but he's already walking towards Sebastian, climbing onto bed, hands reaching out to touch and feel the expanse of Sebastian's bared skin.

"I keep telling you to wake me for the gym," Sebastian says, eyes glinting in mischief before closing in pleasure, hips bucking up against the hand Lewis has laid over his dick. "You are the only one at fault if I get bored."

"Bored," Lewis repeats gruffly, drinking up the sight of Sebastian moving against his still fingers, getting himself off by his own ministrations. "You get bored like this when we're waiting for free practice?"

"Not really," Sebastian says, practically fucking purrs, thrusts quickening, becoming more shallow, as he lays his head against Lewis' shoulder. "I spend it thinking about fucking you inside the Mercedes hospitality, right under your team's nose."

Lewis knows, logically, that Sebastian's probably just saying that to rile him up. Lewis knows because it _works_, because he's surging forward to wipe the smile off Sebastian's lips with his own, takes Sebastian's cock full in his hand and beats it off, fast and rough, unrelenting, until Sebastian's clawing his nails down Lewis' back to keep grounded, spilling all over Lewis' fingers with a wet and shaky moan.

When Sebastian returns the favour, he does it from behind, an arm slung around Lewis' waist, kisses the tracks he's made along his back, every touch of his lips coming with a, "Sorry."

"It's fine," Lewis tells him, breath hitching as Sebastian gathers the precome on the tip of Lewis' cock and spreads it along the rest of his shaft, "I've had worse scratches before."

"Right," Sebastian says, presses his mouth over the inked writing behind Lewis' ear, _BLESSED_, on the side of Lewis' neck, _God is love_, "Your tattoos."

Lewis doesn't mean that, but he doesn't tell Sebastian he's wrong.

On the fifth day, Sebastian's set to leave New York, but his flight's not until the afternoon, so they spend the whole morning making out in Sebastian's bed, jerking each other off, deft and unhurried. Lewis comes first, completely sapped of all energy, but there's just enough left to keep his eyes open and watch Sebastian come right after him, mouth parted, blond lashes fluttering closed, commits it to memory no matter how poor an imitation it looks.

He drives Sebastian back to the airport once they've both washed up—separately, because Sebastian doesn't want to be late—and Lewis puts his car in park not really knowing what to say.

"So," Sebastian starts, rubs his hands up and down his thighs, looking at a loss for words as well, and it comforts Lewis, somewhat. "This was the Lewis Hamilton experience?"

"I guess so," Lewis says, laughing, but it feels grated out from his throat, stilted and unnatural. "Hope you got what you needed out of it."

It comes out frank, not at all like the joke Lewis intended it to be, but Sebastian doesn't miss a beat, just hums out a noncommittal, "I hope," before stepping out of the car.

Lewis should help him with his luggage, is what he'd originally planned to do, but he stays inside, doesn't feel like it all of a sudden. He messes with the knobs of his heater settings instead, cranks it up on high until he's sweating underneath his beanie.

Sebastian knocks on his window, his image blurry from the fog misting up the glass. Lewis opens it three quarters of the way down, enough so that he can see Sebastian's whole face, can see Sebastian open his mouth, looking like he wants to say something Lewis probably doesn't want, isn't ready, to hear, but in the end all he does is extend a hand out and say, "See you in Barcelona?"

"Yeah," Lewis says, clasps Sebastian's palm like they're at parc fermé after completing a race, in the cool down room in front of all the cameras capturing their every interaction, down to the very last minutiae. Lewis doesn't know how he's going to do this all season long knowing where Sebastian's fingers have been on his body, knowing that it won't be the same. "See you."

Sebastian smiles, squeezes Lewis' hand once before letting go. "And you'll bring your best so there are no excuses when I win the Championship this year?"

And something calms in Lewis at that, competitiveness quieting anything else he might be feeling. "At my best, you definitely won't be winning anything."

He doesn't state it as an insult, just as a fact—he's as good as he is because he _believes _he's good, believes there's no one else who can beat him, all things levelled—and usually he'd have worried about how it'd come off, whose ego he'd bruise, what underlying insecurities he's picking on, but Sebastian just laughs with his head tilted to the side, the light from Lewis' car interior illuminating the planes of his face when he says, "I guess we'll see."

Sebastian drums his fingers against the edge of Lewis' window one last time before straightening up, turning around, and Lewis sits there watching the whole while as Sebastian walks away.

There's still a few more days left before he has to go back to the factory himself, so Lewis hits Miles and a couple other friends up to hang out, spends hours at a time shooting hoops indoors and shopping around and shilling tens of thousands of dollars on drinks at wherever club he's been dragged to for the night. He's barely in his apartment as it is, but he still tries not to stay in for too long, keeps himself too busy to think about why that's the case.

The day before he leaves, it's just him and Miles, lounging on the recliners by the private pool in Lewis' condo building. Lewis is on his phone, scrolling idly through his Instagram feed, not really paying attention to what he's seeing, but he only looks up when Miles reaches over to slap a hand against his knee.

"Chill, bro," Miles laughs, tipping his sunglasses down to peer at Lewis over the rims. "Stop fucking fidgeting already, you're giving me a headache."

Lewis hadn't even realized he was doing it. He stops. "My bad."

"What you so antsy for, anyways?" Miles asks, then arches a brow up at him dubiously, "Don't tell me you're nervous about racing?"

"Of course not," Lewis says, because he isn't, never is, but he does get uneasy from having to wait. "Just dying to get started, I guess."

"That's good," Miles says, seemingly appeased, "Can't have you cracking under pressure like Vettel did."

Lewis freezes at the mention of Sebastian's name. He hadn't really thought about Sebastian since he'd left, whether by choice or by consequence, but he finds himself wanting to defend him automatically, irritation spiking through him at Miles' dig.

"He's a great driver, actually," he says stiffly. "One of the best."

Miles goggles at him, clearly surprised, and Lewis immediately regrets saying it. "I know he is," Miles says. "I was just kidding."

"Yeah, well," Lewis says, before jumping to, "How's your girlfriend doing?" and Miles has the good enough grace to leave it at that for the rest of the evening.

Time flies by quickly after that. When Lewis isn't in the factory, he's training, and when he's not training, he's decompressing, playing with his nephew or cuddling his dogs or sketching designs for his Tommy brand, and before he knows it, he's already in Barcelona, getting fitted into the cockpit for the first official drive of the season.

He doesn't see Sebastian until late into the session, passes by him during media rounds, but even then Lewis doesn't greet him, ducks towards the paddock and surrounds himself with his team. He's not hiding, tells himself he's not hiding, but if he was it wouldn't have worked anyways, because Sebastian shows up at the door of Lewis' motorhome and breezes past him when he opens it.

"Make yourself at home?" Lewis says uncertainly, belatedly, because Sebastian's already dropped himself down on one of the settees.

"Were you sandbagging?" Sebastian asks without preamble, no _hey_, or _how have you been?_ and maybe they're past that, _should _be past trivialities like that, but it still catches Lewis somewhat off guard.

"It's the first day of testing," he says, not really a direct answer, but Sebastian just nods and folds his arms over the table in front of him, looking stern and unflappable.

"You promised to bring your best," Sebastian says, and Lewis' eyes are momentarily drawn to the subtle contour of muscle underneath the sleeves of Sebastian's sweater before he forces them away.

"I didn't promise anything. I said _at_ my best, I'll be the only one winning," he says, crouches down to grab a bottle of water from his drinks bar, is hit with a strong sense of déjà vu. "I don't know what else you want me to say, man."

It's not for nothing; when Lewis stands up, Sebastian's in front of him again, just like he had been in New York, in Lewis' kitchen, bracketing Lewis' hips in between his arms as he sets both hands against the counter on either side of him.

"I want you to say that you _are_ at your best," Sebastian says, not that much taller than Lewis but still looming, still gut-wrenching. "Which would mean that today, I was better than your best."

Lewis squares his shoulders. He feels battle-worn, instincts revving him up for a fight he's had numerous times before, but then Sebastian breaks out into a wide grin, all his teeth bared and the flesh around his eyes crinkling, and just like that, all of Lewis' resolve crashes down into relief.

"Asshole," Lewis mutters, but the word's barely out of his mouth before Sebastian's leaning the rest of the way forward to kiss him, teeth nipping at his lower lip, hands roaming up his sides between shirt and skin.

"Just teasing," Sebastian says when he comes up for breath, latches his lips at a spot just below Lewis' jaw and sucks at it until it goes tender, "Wanted this for a whole month," and Lewis doesn't want to hear any of that even though it's true for him too, so he hauls Sebastian's head back and kisses him to shut him up.

Sebastian fucks him on his bed, on his back, Lewis' calves hung over Sebastian's shoulders, his toes curling into the curve of Sebastian's spine. It's gentle, and thorough, and not nearly enough after so many weeks, so Lewis eventually flips them over and bottoms out on Sebastian's dick.

"You're impossible," Sebastian says, half laugh, half groan, but he hikes his hips up to match the pace of Lewis' movements and takes Lewis' cock in his hold, quick and tight and resolute, runs his other hand up the side of his thigh, to his belly, across his chest, a litany of touches that envelops Lewis' body whole as he whites out and lets go.

For the next two weeks of testing, and then the next few race weekends after that, they develop the routine of sneaking into each other's motorhomes, exchanging keycards to their hotel rooms; fucking after sessions, picking up from where they left off in New York. Lewis has no explanation for it other than they're two of the best and oldest drivers on the grid, under the most scrutiny and pressure, and so naturally they'd come to each other to trade blows. He's under no illusion that it's anything more than that, though, anything sustainable, not when there's a championship on the line and the title fight comes down to just between the two of them like it always does, like it always should. He's learned that lesson the hard way, and Lewis—Lewis doesn't, _won't_, make the same mistakes twice in a row; keeps their meetings strictly on Friday evenings after free practice, gets right down to business the very moment either one of them steps through the door.

"Can't we do this on Sunday instead?" Sebastian asks him in Baku, right after they have sex. He's already clothed and pretty much set to leave, but he lies back down beside Lewis in bed and shuts his eyes like he's about to go to sleep. "There is still qualifying tomorrow, but I feel like my bones have been fucked out of my body."

Lewis laughs into his pillow, "Don't exaggerate," but he doesn't exactly disagree; he feels completely sated right now, limp and tension-free, and that's the last thing any person should be, heading into a competition.

"So that's a yes?" Sebastian asks, turning on his side to face Lewis. Lewis can feel the mattress dip beside him, the warmth of Sebastian's body closing in. "I can see you Sunday?"

Lewis can't see Sebastian's expression on account of his own eyes being closed, but he can hear the inflections in his voice; like he's genuinely looking forward to seeing Lewis again in two days, like there's nothing else he anticipates more, and that's—Lewis doesn't know what to think about that.

"I fly out early that day," Lewis says, a white lie; his flight's at three o'clock in the morning, plenty of hours to spare after the race. "Not enough time."

"Ah," Sebastian says, disappointment plain and clear, but it's replaced so quickly by levity when he says, "Are you sure you are not just trying to sabotage me?" that Lewis dispels it as a trick of the night.

"Sabotage you of what?" Lewis asks, cracking one eye open to see Sebastian inching towards him, stopping just a couple centimetres short of getting them chest to chest.

"Well, Charles has already gotten pole from our car this year, but I haven't," Sebastian says, reaching across to brush some of Lewis' hair off of his forehead, leaving Lewis tingling where he makes contact with his skin. "Not to brag or be crass, but the only thing different he's doing is that he is not fucking you."

And maybe once upon a time, Lewis would've taken that differently, would've perceived it as an attack or an accusation against the integrity of his driving, but it comes surprisingly easy when he says, "How do you know I'm not fucking him? Maybe that's the real reason why I can't see you on Sunday."

"Is that so," Sebastian says flatly, but his eyes are fiery, his hands all the more so when they run all throughout Lewis' body, when they enclose around Lewis' cock, and coming in general is just as easy for him, too.

Valtteri clinches pole the next day. Lewis isn't happy to lose out, especially not to a teammate, but it almost makes up for it when they're in the middle of the post-qualifying press conference and he sees Sebastian trying to suppress a yawn.

It works until Monaco, on a Sunday.

Lewis finishes first in Monte Carlo, and he's buzzing—for the win, for the way he'd won it, for knowing that he'd done Niki proud; maybe for something more. He's thought so much of Niki and his last few years in Mercedes this past week that Friday had come and gone without him meeting Sebastian, but all he wants now is to think about something else, to bask in his victory and not wallow in his grief, to see Sebastian and touch Sebastian and have Sebastian touch him.

He drags Sebastian into a closed off corner in the paddock after their phone interview, crashes their lips together and shoves his tongue inside his mouth, pulls Sebastian by the hips and grinds up, up, up, but Sebastian pushes him back gently by the shoulders, keeps them a hair's width apart.

"This is not what I meant when I said we should do this Sunday," Sebastian says, smiling slightly, his lips kiss-swollen, and Lewis has to press the crown of his head hard against the wall to try not to take them back under his. "I imagined a little more privacy, not being frightened of being caught."

"No one's going to catch us," Lewis says, but he's already pushing Sebastian off, sits down on the adjacent bench and scrubs his face over with his palms.

"Are you alright?" Sebastian asks, and he's standing in front of Lewis again, the front of his calves lined up against Lewis' knees.

"Yes," Lewis says, but Sebastian gives him this _look_ and his whole upper body slumps, his head falling forward to lean against Sebastian's stomach. "No. I don't know."

Sebastian's hand against the nape of his neck is a soothing comfort, but Lewis doesn't get to savour it much, because suddenly there's another voice breaking through the silence, calling his name out the way it hasn't been for so long, "Lewis?"

Lewis' blood runs cold, muscles tightening underneath Sebastian's hold. He thinks Sebastian's fingers do too, but they're gone before Lewis can be sure.

"Nico, hey," Sebastian says amiably, not moving away from Lewis; if anything, he moves even closer, positions himself in a way that makes it seem like he's shielding him off, and Lewis can feel a surge of calm wash him over, along with something else; something more potent, dangerous.

"Sebastian," Nico says, through gritted teeth, and Lewis could almost laugh. Nico's never liked Sebastian much, for some indistinct reason, and this probably isn't doing him any favours. _G__ood_, Lewis thinks. Let him be angry, or jealous, or whatever. It's none of Lewis' concern; not anymore.

"What do you want?" Lewis asks, taking his head off Sebastian, and maybe it's harsh when Nico hasn't even done anything yet, but that's the keyword: yet. With Nico, there's always a _yet_. "You looking for an interview, or something?"

"Oh, get over yourself," Nico snaps, and Lewis is torn between wanting to be smug or sad about being right. "I just wanted to talk about Niki. I thought we could at least do that."

And Lewis' heart sinks at that, thinks about how disappointed Niki would be to see them like this, fractured and divided even over his memory. So Lewis stands up, causing Sebastian to step away to avoid a collision, says, "Yeah. We can do that."

"Hey," Sebastian says, low enough for only Lewis to hear. His hand's on Lewis' elbow and his eyes bore through Lewis' temple, but Lewis doesn't look at him back. "I will see you later?"

"Yeah," Lewis says, and he doesn't know if he means later today or even later still, on the Friday of the next Grand Prix; doesn't know if he means it, full stop. "See you."

"It's nice to see you, Seb," Nico says, sounding kinder this time, faker, when Lewis reaches the area where he's standing, like he's somehow won.

"Okay," Sebastian deadpans, not buying it, and Lewis' treacherous mouth curves up in a smile.

Nico suggests that they go to his apartment, right above Lewis' own. Lewis refuses, tells him flat out that he wants to talk on fairer ground.

"I didn't come to you to fight," Nico says, but Lewis doesn't budge, and so Nico eventually sighs and says, "Alright. Let's go somewhere else, then."

They go to a coffee shop just three blocks down, the one they always used to go to for brunch years ago. It's not the most neutral place, but hardly anything is in Monaco, and it's still better than staying inside Nico's condo, surrounded by all of Nico's things, being reminded of what they used to do, how they used to be.

"Are you going to Vienna for Niki's funeral?" Nico asks, after Nico rattles out both of their orders to their server, Lewis steaming over how Nico still remembers his to a T.

"Obviously," Lewis says, wanting to roll his eyes, but he thinks of Niki frowning at him from wherever he is right now and reigns it in. "I'm flying over on Tuesday."

Nico takes a sip of his water, by all intents and purposes appearing serene. "Will Sebastian be with you?"

And there it is, Lewis thinks. This isn't about Niki; it's never been about anything but Nico trying to beat Lewis at every opportunity. "You have a problem with me and Sebastian?" 

"No," Nico says, but Lewis can see the curl of his upper lip, and Lewis knows it won't be long before the facade breaks. "I'm just wondering how long you've been fucking him."

"What, worried that he'd lapped you?" Lewis says mockingly, but also tells him candidly, "It started just this off-season. Cheating's not really my thing."

Nico bristles. "And you think I—" he cuts himself off, presses his lips together until they're just a thin line, and then he's smiling, a cruel and horrid thing, "You know what? It all makes sense."

Lewis can feel his brows furrow at the non-sequitur. "What makes sense?"

"Why you're together," Nico says, twirls two of his fingers around like he's saying something significant, like an absolute bell-end. "He hasn't been in the title fight since last year in Italy, and he doesn't look to be coming back into it any time soon."

"And what the fuck's that supposed to mean?" Lewis says, voice progressively increasing in volume, isn't sure if he's offended for Sebastian's sake or his own, but the server comes back with their drinks, and Lewis takes that moment to recentre himself, all his errant thoughts. "What's your point?"

"I'm just saying," Nico shrugs innocently, but Lewis knows all of his tells, knows all the ways he can get under someone's skin. "It works because you're not threatened by him. But once he puts up an actual challenge for the Championship, you're going to do the same thing to him that you did to me."

"What _I _did to—" It's Lewis' turn to cut himself off, can't believe what he's hearing. "You're saying it's _my _fault we broke up?"

"I'm saying you don't make it easy," Nico says, his eyes cold and unforgiving, and Lewis remembers that first morning with Sebastian, how he'd said the same thing, _you make it so hard_, and his gut churns acid. "You were only good at being with me when you were the one on top."

Nico's always been good at _this_, though, Lewis thinks; making Lewis feel alone even when he's with him, making him feel like he's losing even when he's winning. 

Later that day, and even later still, on the Friday of the next Grand Prix, Lewis doesn't see Sebastian; places his headphones over his ears and turns his music up so that he can't hear if he's knocking.

And that works, too, until it doesn't, until Montreal on the Sunday, when Sebastian barrels through the Mercedes hospitality after that shitshow of a race, corners Lewis with Lewis' whole team watching and a camera man trailing right behind him.

"Can we talk?" Sebastian says, no question as to who he's referring to when his eyes are locked in on Lewis' face.

Lewis feels his throat constrict, unable to speak, but even if he was, he wouldn't really know what to tell him. _It wasn't my decision__. It's not the way I wanted to win. I'm no good to be with. I'm sorry. _None of it seems to be enough.

Bono takes the heat for him, like always, sets a hand over Sebastian's shoulder and says, "Maybe not here, mate."

Sebastian opens his mouth, ready to quarrel, but Bono gives him a meaningful look, gestures his head towards the camera behind him, filming the whole thing. Sebastian turns around, and it's like he finally realizes that he was being followed, that there are other people in the room besides him and Lewis, because his teeth clack shut and his face goes blank and he makes his way back out of the building, but not before telling Lewis, "Later," and he's no longer asking.

Sebastian shows up at his hotel room that night, looking less incensed than he'd been in the day, but Lewis can tell it's just brewing, waiting to be let out by the right or wrong thing to say.

So Lewis just says the first thing that comes to his mind, knowing that it won't really matter to Sebastian either way. "If this is about the penalty—"

"This isn't about the fucking penalty," Sebastian says, except what else could it be, and it's Baku all over again, Nico all over again, and Lewis is so stupid to think that it could've ended any differently. "I came to find you, that day in Monaco. I came to find you here, on Friday. And nothing. What happened?"

Lewis doesn't, can't, explain; too exhausted, too afraid that Sebastian won't understand. "I was out."

"Bullshit," Sebastian says, stepping forward, and Lewis flinches. "You have barely looked at me this whole weekend. You have been avoiding me, and I want to know why." And then his expression falters, his voice going deathly quiet when he says, "You and Nico—"

"I can't," Lewis says before Sebastian can finish. He can't do this again, can't put himself through the same vicious cycle of giving everything he's got and still coming up short. "Just—sorry, okay, but I _can't_." 

Sebastian's face shutters off. "Alright," he says, already turning around, showing his back to Lewis, walking away from Lewis, leaving Lewis, "If that is how it is, then alright."

Lewis doesn't know what's more deafening: the bang of the door when Sebastian slams it shut, or the oppressive silence that comes right after it.

Nothing much changes, at least in terms of his racing; Lewis wins in France, loses Austria due to problems with overheating, wins again in Silverstone, in front of his home fanbase. He watches Sebastian crash out of the race in the cool down room, wonders if it had been in any way caused by their separation; wonders if he'd be feeling the same congestion in his chest if it'd been a year ago, if Sebastian was leading the Championship, if he hadn't known what Sebastian looked like, _really_ looked like, in the aftermath of losing the world title or with his hair wet from a shower or when he comes on Lewis, inside Lewis, all with a quiet groan.

Germany's the only real blip in his calendar, and he doesn't know how much that's from him and Sebastian not talking or him being sick. It's just a rotten weekend overall, from flesh to core, and Lewis can't fucking wait to get it over with.

On his way out of Hockenheimring, he sees Sebastian; sitting on the back of his dad's bike, smiling, signing autographs while juggling some paper bags while also trying to keep a hold of his dad's waist. He looks ridiculous; he looks happy, vindicated, loved. Lewis can't stand to look at him.

A fan runs up to Lewis just as he's about to take another path out to leave. "Can you please sign my hat for me?"

"Sure," Lewis says, grabs the girl's hat and pen, signs absentmindedly and only recognizes Sebastian's handwriting when he ends up scribbling over it. "Sorry."

"It is fine," the girl says, although she sounds pinched, stares at the brim of her cap forlornly. "Sebastian Vettel wanted me to give you this."

She hands Lewis a bottle of what seem to be pills. Paracetamol, the label reads, and Lewis is suddenly indescribably angry.

"Bring it back to him," Lewis says, clenching his fists at his sides so that he won't be tempted to grab it from her and throw it to the ground; thinks, how is any of this fair, thinks, how do I get to be the only one miserable regardless of whether I'm losing or winning, thinks, I miss him. "Tell him I don't need it."

The girl sniffs haughtily, regards Lewis with a disapproving glare. "You tell him yourself," she says, sets the bottle at Lewis' feet before walking away, muttering to herself in rapid-fire German.

Lewis picks it up, eventually, but only to dump it into the nearest trash bin.

Lewis does tell him, in Hungary, emboldened by his hunting win over Max, by Sebastian still ignoring him after what he did in Germany, by the thought that he won't see him again for another four weeks.

"That shit you pulled last Sunday," Lewis says, approaching Sebastian on their way out of the press pen, not caring anymore about who hears or sees. "What was that?"

"Uh," Max says, caught in between them, looking both pained and intrigued. "Okay. I'm gonna just—hope you guys have a good break." Discomfort seems to win out, and he shuffles past the both of them in breakneck speed, and then it's just the two of them, alone, for the first time in weeks.

"What was what on Sunday?" Sebastian asks, eyes cast down, pretty obviously acting naive, and it pisses Lewis off, or it makes him sad, he doesn't know, because they've started becoming interchangeable in the last few days.

"Finally caught me out on a mistake so you had to rub it in?" Lewis says, and Sebastian finally looks up at him, nostrils flaring, and it's not what Lewis wants, isn't even close, but it's _something_, better than the nothing he's been getting from him all week. "Just because you've made so many—"

"You think—" Sebastian says, uncharacteristically frigid, but maybe that's just what Lewis does to people, ruins who they are from the inside out without even meaning to, without even realizing it. "I don't know what games you and Nico like to play, but I'm not taking any part in it. I refuse."

"_You_ refuse?" Lewis says, because he doesn't know how to graciously accept defeat, "You're the one who started this, remember? Back in New York?"

"You're the one who asked me to come. _You_ invited _me_," Sebastian says, voice breaking, losing control, and Lewis waits for the savage satisfaction to come, but it doesn't. "But maybe it was my mistake to take it."

And then he's gone, leaving once again, but Lewis is so used to being left by now that it's not even anything more to him than a dull ache.

He goes to New York for the summer break; maybe because he's a masochist, maybe for the same reason he'd overstayed his welcome in Monaco for two years, maybe in the secret hope that Sebastian will—that he's—

It's fine, though, because his brother comes to spend part of the break with him, brings Roscoe and Coco along to stay. It's good distraction, and there's nothing more important to Lewis than being with his family, but he finds himself just going through the motions of it, sometimes, catches himself zoning out while his brother speaks or while he's walking Roscoe and Coco out on the streets. The only thing that doesn't come mechanically to him is sleep, but Lewis likes that better because he can control what he's thinking while he's awake in a way that he can't with his dreams.

"What's been up with you?" Nicolas asks him on one of their last nights together, when they're out for dinner at some fancy restaurant with a stringent dress code. Lewis' outfit passes the criteria for it, all but the sunglasses he's wearing to conceal the eye bags underneath, and he knows he looks obnoxious but he doesn't give a shit; he's _Lewis Hamilton_, he can wear whatever he wants, do whatever he wants, except—except.

"What do you mean?" Lewis says, picks at his plate. He knows Nicolas knows Lewis knows what he means.

"You just seem..." Nicolas trails off, eyeing Lewis long enough, searchingly enough, to make him shift in his seat. "I don't know. Off your game."

Lewis laughs hollowly. "Winning eight races out of twelve ain't good enough for you?" Lewis jokes, but Nicolas doesn't even crack a smile, makes two of them.

"Is it for you?" Nicolas asks, and Lewis supposes it's not.

Nicolas doesn't bring it up again until the day he leaves, hugs Lewis hard at the airport just before he goes past security. "Hey, big bro?"

"Yeah, lil' bro?" Lewis shoots back, smiling into Nicolas' shoulder, has no clue what he's going to do without him, means that broadly and specifically.

"I hope you know you're loved," Nicolas says, and Lewis goes completely still. "I don't know what's bringing you down or making you think otherwise, but you deserve love, and there are people willing to give it to you if you let them." 

He thinks of Nico, _you don't make it easy_, thinks of Sebastian, _you make it so hard_. He thinks of Nicolas, who's never once failed him, and he knows who to trust. "Since when are you wiser than me?"

"I mean, I've never been just the good looks in the family," Nicolas winks, and Lewis laughs, the first time he's meant it this whole break. "Love you."

"Love you, too," Lewis says, squeezes his arms tightly around Nicolas' shoulders before pushing him away, misses him already. "Now go. Don't leave your headphones on the plane when you get off."

"Yeah, yeah, stop nagging," Nicolas says, and Lewis laughs again, laughs until his brother disappears from view and the loneliness starts to kick back in.

Lewis takes his brother's advice; he's made his choice and Sebastian's made his, so it's time he move on and stop sulking about it.

And he's about to, he is, but in the middle of him getting dressed for a party his doorbell rings, Roscoe barking loudly at the disruption in his sleep, so he goes downstairs and walks to his intercom to see who it could be.

It's Sebastian, standing in the lobby of his condo, hands in his pants pockets and his feet scuffing at the marbled floor. The screen's tiny and his picture's distorted from the angle of the camera lens, but Lewis doesn't need anything more than that to remember the way Sebastian habitually pokes his tongue out at the corner of his lips, the way his smile lights up his face even when he's just doing it to be polite, the way he looks at Lewis when he thinks Lewis isn't looking, delicate and implacable and just a little bit awestruck.

_You deserve love_, he hears his brother's voice in his head. _There are people willing to give it to you if you let them. _Lewis is about to find out if he's right.

"What are you doing here?" Lewis asks into the mic, and Sebastian's head swings around from the passerby he'd been exchanging pleasantries with to look directly into the camera. 

"Lewis?" Sebastian says, tentative and subdued, like he rarely ever is, but Lewis doesn't think he sounds scared, which is good; Lewis is terrified enough for the both of them. "You're—can I come up?"

"Yeah," Lewis says, hand shaking against the monitor. "Yeah, come up." 

He buzzes Sebastian in, wipes the sweat off his palms against the sides of his jeans. By the time the elevator finally dings and Sebastian steps out, they're damp again, but his mouth and his tongue have dried right up.

Sebastian doesn't seem to have the same issue; is the first one to speak. "Hey."

"Hey," Lewis says. His voice sounds weird, reedy, like he's speaking underwater. "I—" He's stuck on that one word, one syllable, for what feels like five minutes, but Sebastian just keeps looking at him and waits and waits. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Sebastian says, doesn't even ask what he's sorry for, but Lewis wants him to know; wants him to know _everything_ about Lewis, the good and the bad.

"It's not okay," Lewis says, surer, steadier, "I was a—I don't know what I was, but I shouldn't have avoided you like I did, and I shouldn't have said what I said in Hungary, and I shouldn't—"

"Why _did_ you avoid me?" Sebastian asks, picks that one particular part from everything else Lewis said, and the thought that that's still what's been tearing Sebastian up inside about all of this ever since the first time he'd asked it makes something click in Lewis' brain.

"You really weren't mad about the penalty?" Lewis asks, but he's more just thinking out loud now, trying to put the pieces together, trying to do it right.

"Of course I was mad," Sebastian answers anyways, like it should be obvious, just as he does, "But I wasn't mad at you, it wasn't your fault. And besides—" he pauses, and Lewis can see him deliberating something in his own head, but it's the farthest thing from what Lewis expects when Sebastian eventually says, "I thought you and Nico had slept together."

"What?" Lewis asks, doesn't know why that would upset Sebastian when he'd already known about him and Nico before, but then it dawns on him that Sebastian means after—after Monaco, after _him_—and Lewis' mouth drops. "_What_?"

Sebastian scratches at his jaw, almost like he's embarrassed, and Lewis is filled with so much affection for him he feels like he could choke. "You left with him that day, and then you stopped coming to see me all of a sudden, so I thought—" his jaw sets stubbornly, endearingly, "Well. It is not the most farfetched conclusion to make."

"It is, actually," Lewis says, and he's not just saying that—for the first time in what feels like forever, he's not just saying that, not just convincing himself of it, not not wanting it to be true, and it's—liberating. "Me and Nico—that was over a long time ago."

"Then why not just say that?" Sebastian asks, visibly deflating, everything that's pent up inside him seeming to release with just one tremulous breath. "Why all the avoidance? Why cut me off?"

Lewis has imagined this conversation a thousand times over in the past few months, has thought of all the things he would say to Sebastian, all the things he wouldn't, if he ever showed up, but now that he's actually face to face with him all of his careful preparation flies out of the window, and all he's suddenly left with is an open, beating heart. "I'm not—I didn't think you'd stay if you found out who I really was."

Sebastian's eyebrows shoot up, coming back down to look at Lewis and Lewis only. "And who do you think you are?"

_You deserve love._ "A sore loser," Lewis says, and he can admit it now because he hopes—_knows_—that Sebastian won't hold it against him. "Someone who loves racing and winning so much that he can forget all the other things that matter." _There are people willing to give it to you if you let them._

Sebastian doesn't say anything for a long time, just stares at Lewis indiscernibly. When he finally speaks, it's with a soft lilt to his voice, a small step made towards Lewis. "You idiot."

Lewis recoils. "What?"

"You think I did not already know this?" Sebastian says, laughs, and Lewis didn't think his chest could swell any larger, but it does at hearing the sound. "You think I'm not the same way?"

They're both loaded questions, but they're answers in their own right, too, answers Lewis hadn't even known he'd wanted to hear. "But you've been so good at congratulating me the last two years. If that was me—"

"You'd have driven into the side of my car like in Baku? Or maybe you'd have accepted what turns out to be a well-meaning invite to Switzerland in the off-season to try and see if you could win over me at fucking?" Sebastian suggests, his smile rueful, "Because if so, that is exactly what I did." His smile loses its jagged edge, turns brutally honest, and then he says, "Or at least, what I had _planned_ to do."

"Oh," Lewis says at first, but what he really wants to say and what eventually comes out of his mouth is, "What happened?"

"Besides the fact that you wouldn't let me win even in that?" Sebastian says, taking another step forward, and he's so close that Lewis can touch him now, if he wanted to; does, so bad. "You made it hard for me to hate you."

And it all makes such sudden and stupid sense to Lewis that all he can do is laugh and laugh. _You make it so hard_. "Not so much recently, though."

"Maybe not," Sebastian says, and just like in New York, in Hungary, it's unclear to Lewis who between them's the first to reach out, Lewis' arms around Sebastian's neck or Sebastian's hands against the small of Lewis' back. "But I still don't hate you."

Lewis lets his forehead rest against Sebastian's, everything else about him feeling so, so light. "What if I start losing and I can't handle it?"

"Then I'll handle it," Sebastian says, like it's easy, the easiest thing in the world, and the refrain of Nico's, _you don't make it easy_, in his head finally loses all of its hold. "What's the point of doing anything without a little challenge?"

"So you're saying being with me's a challenge?" Lewis says, but he doesn't mean it seriously, says it mostly for the sake of disagreeing, to see the fond exasperation flood Sebastian's eyes.

"Right now it is," Sebastian says, but Lewis knows he doesn't mean that seriously, either, because his hand skates up underneath Lewis' shirt, fingers cold against his skin but leaving Lewis burning all over. "Why aren't you kissing me already?"

"Why aren't you?" Lewis counters, but Sebastian's quick to remedy both of their mistakes; handles it.

It starts out soft, cautious, just fleeting brushes of lips against lips, but it's like they both realize at the same time how long it's been, how foolish they were for disconnecting—or at least their bodies do, because then they're scrabbling, hands tugging at each other's shirts, teeth grazing against every bit of flesh they can find purchase on and tongues soothing the resultant sting.

"Why are you so dressed up?" Sebastian asks aggravatedly, when the clasps of Lewis' chains won't come off, his hands made clumsy with want. "Were you going somewhere before I came?"

"Party," Lewis murmurs, short and concise, is incapable of stringing more than a few words together consecutively when Sebastian's slipped his hand past the band of Lewis' pants. "Wanted to—was trying to—"

"Pick someone up?" Sebastian supplies for him, and it's along those same lines, but what Lewis really meant was, _forget you_, and maybe Sebastian knows that.

Or maybe not, because when Lewis says, "I got him," Sebastian comes to a halt, and then he comes down hard on Lewis' mouth.

"The things you do to me," Sebastian grunts, dragging his teeth down the inside of Lewis' bottom lip, doesn't elucidate, but Lewis has a good idea of what it entails, because it's what Sebastian does to him, too.

"You talk so much," Lewis says, but he hooks his finger in Sebastian's belt loops and pulls him backwards, past the foyer and past the hallway and past the bedroom door, pulls him until he's lying on top of Lewis in bed, and the way their bodies fit so naturally together is all the talking Lewis needs.

"Wait," Lewis says, though, just a little bit later, and he laughs at his hypocrisy, at Sebastian groaning in dissatisfaction at being stopped halfway from slotting his tongue inside Lewis' mouth. "If you were mad because you thought Nico and I slept together—how did you figure out that we hadn't?"

"Can we not talk about Nico right now?" Sebastian asks, but Lewis gazes at him expectantly, and Sebastian seems to realize how important this is to Lewis because he lets out a breath in concession and kisses the corner of Lewis' lips indulgently before saying, "I didn't figure it out. I asked him."

"What?" Lewis doesn't know how many more times he's going to say that exact same word in the exact same way, but it seems to be Sebastian's mission tonight to keep on surprising him. "You seriously—you _asked _him?"

"It was killing me not to know," Sebastian says, hides his face in the crook of Lewis' neck. "I was sitting at home during the start of the break just tearing my hair off over the uncertainty, and I already don't have that much hair left to keep."

Lewis won't even get started on that last part, not wanting to kill the mood entirely, so he asks another question instead, more pressing, "And he told you? Nico actually said the truth?"

"More or less," Sebastian says wryly, but before Lewis can ask him what that means, Sebastian's lifting his head back up and smiling down at Lewis, eyes clouded with remorse. "Sorry to think that you would do that."

"It's okay," Lewis says, but Sebastian shakes his head and starts frowning, so Lewis says it again. "Hey. It's _okay_."

"It's not," Sebastian says, a rehash of their earlier exchange, but with their roles reversed. "We had never even hinted about being exclusive, but still I acted like I was entitled to more than what I already got."

Lewis reaches a hand up, smooths the lines knotting between Sebastian's brows down with his thumb. "It really killed you to think that Nico and I had sex?" 

"Yes," Sebastian says; earnest, unhesitating, no games played, and the realization comes to Lewis all in one big rush: there's nothing about himself that Sebastian isn't entitled to, that he's not willing to give. All Sebastian has to do is ask, like he's always had, and he'll more than receive.

Lewis shifts his body beneath Sebastian's, near imperceptible, but it gets their groins aligned perfectly and their cocks pressed against each other and gives Lewis free access to create friction with a roll of his hips. "It killed you to think we were doing this?"

Sebastian sucks in a sharp breath, eyes going half-lidded when Lewis wedges a hand between them to cup Sebastian over his pants. "Yes."

"It killed you to think that I was undressing him like this?" Lewis asks, unzipping Sebastian and snaking four of his fingers through the opening, running just the tips of them along the underside of Sebastian's cock. "That I was touching him like this?"

"Yes," Sebastian chokes out, hips spasming uninhibitedly, trying to seek more of Lewis' touch. "_Lewis_—"

Sebastian said he refuses to take part in any of the games him and Nico play—play, Lewis finally realizes, not played, because Sebastian really thought, after everything, that Lewis would want Nico again, would want anyone other than Sebastian, _God_—but this isn't one of them, so Lewis goes on; pushes Sebastian over so that he's flat on his back, watching raptly as Lewis stands from the bed to take off his own pants, helping along as Lewis removes his, letting Lewis tug him back over his body so that he's encased in between Sebastian's elbows and knees.

Lewis stretches an arm out to open his nightstand, pawing blindly for the bottle of lube that should still be inside, untouched since the last time he and Sebastian had done this. He coats his fingers with it and gets to work almost instantly, teasing them over his entrance with no real pressure before probing right in, swallowing his digits up knuckle after knuckle as Sebastian's eyes follow their descent, tireless, feasting.

"It killed you—it killed you to think that I was opening myself up for him like this?" Lewis says, voice catching as Sebastian takes him full in his hand, as he kneads inside himself at just the right spot. "_Fuck_."

"Yes," Sebastian says, sounding wrecked already, as wrecked as Lewis feels, "I couldn't—couldn't bear to think—"

Lewis could stop now, he knows, _should_ stop now, but quitting's not something that's wired into him, not when Sebastian looks like _this_, so he doesn't, thrusts into Sebastian's fist in the same rhythm that he fucks himself with his hand. "It killed you to think that he was fucking me? Right after I'd been with you?"

"Lewis," Sebastian pleads, has resorted to rubbing himself against the crease of Lewis' thigh, against the side of Lewis' dick, his own cock throbbing and skidding against Lewis' slicked skin. "Please, just—can I—will you let me—"

And it's exactly because Sebastian asks that Lewis doesn't mind surrendering. "_Yes_."

No sooner does he pull his fingers out than Sebastian's pushing in, bending Lewis' knees up and to the sides so that he can bury himself deep, and Lewis is so overwhelmed by the rekindled sensation of being so utterly and incessantly filled that he stops breathing, anchors the heels of his feet into the notches on Sebastian's hipbones to keep himself from drifting.

"Lewis," Sebastian says, voice rumbling through Lewis as he drapes himself over Lewis' chest, hips snapping faster, disordered, lets Lewis know that he's close. "I'm going to—"

Lewis wraps one hand around the back of Sebastian's neck, the other around his own cock, and he catches every single noise Sebastian makes into his mouth as Sebastian drops down to his forearms and comes, his entire body wracked with tremors except for the fingers he covers over Lewis' hand.

"Perfect," Sebastian murmurs against Lewis' lips, his cheek, his jaw, twists his wrist around Lewis the way Lewis likes, and even though Lewis knows he's not, is far from it, he believes Sebastian without a shadow of a doubt. "Come for me?"

Lewis' relinquished body first goes pliant, then taut, and then for Sebastian, he finally does.

Sebastian collapses onto his back beside Lewis, when they've both ridden off their aftershocks, his breaths gradually evening out in the din. Lewis turns on his side to watch him, a whole spectacle, and soon enough Sebastian does the same.

"Hey," Sebastian says, smiling like he can't contain it.

"Hey," Lewis says, feeling like he should say something more, his mouth too small for his fervent tongue, so he says, "I respect you." It's the truth, and also the lamest thing ever, especially after what they've just done, but Sebastian's face just goes solemn, his mouth straightening down, his hand reaching out to swipe over Lewis' cheekbone with the pad of his thumb.

"Okay," Sebastian says, before blatantly one-upping him with, "I love you."

But Lewis lets it go; just this once, he's more than okay with letting go. "With Nico—"

"It's okay," Sebastian says again, softly, and right now, Lewis thinks it really is. "You don't have to explain."

Lewis nuzzles into Sebastian's hand, closes his eyes. "Promise me we won't end up like that."

"I promise," Sebastian says, and the last thing Lewis remembers feeling before falling asleep is Sebastian's lips against his forehead, the unequivocal faith that Sebastian will keep his word.

Sometime in the middle of the night, while it's still dark outside his windows, Lewis wakes up. Sebastian's still there, lying beside him, snoring lightly with his mouth hung open, their legs tangled up together underneath the bed sheets and his dogs.

Lewis moves to get his phone from the nightstand, reaching over Sebastian, careful not to wake him up. On his way back down, Lewis takes his picture, pecks him on the cheek just because he can. 

The first thing he does is text Nico. _thank you_, he says, _for not lying to sebastian about monaco_. Then he checks all of his messages, all of his missed calls, sends apologies to everyone he'd ghosted by not showing up to the party, and before long he's reading Nico's reply on the top of his notifications bar.

_no problem_, Nico says, followed by, _i'm sorry_.

_i know_, Lewis says, _me too_, and for the first time in what feels like forever, it's as simple as that.

Sebastian gets pole position in Spa, beating Lewis by two-hundredths of a second. Lewis pouts for the cameras at parc fermé, disappointed in his own performance, but once Sebastian has him pinned up behind the Ferrari garage, he's doing something else entirely.

"Come on, man, we still have to—" Lewis cuts off in a hiss, and then a moan, because Sebastian has his mouth on the underside of his jaw, tongue laving upwards to flick at Lewis' earlobe. "_Stop_."

Sebastian looks up at him through his eyelashes, guiltless and unassuming, pouting a little bit himself. "Is this how I should expect to be congratulated after an amazing drive from now on? With you blue-balling me?"

Lewis laughs, shoves him off. "You are _such_ a sore winner," he jokes, but kisses him on the mouth for good measure, likes the way Sebastian's eyes go foggy right after. "After the press conference, okay?"

During the press conference, some hack of a journalist asks Lewis, "There's been such good camaraderie between you and Sebastian lately, Canada aside, with you guys getting along and joking around quite a bit this year. Can you tell me: would your relationship be the same if your roles were reversed? Would you be as magnanimous as Sebastian has been if you were not the one on top spot every weekend? Or would it be like you and Nico—"

Lewis' back goes rigid. He's vexed enough to consider saying, _Camaraderie? Is that what they call fucking each other's brains out now?_ but then Sebastian comes alive from beside him, speaking before Lewis can get the chance to.

"Can I just say something?" Sebastian says, voice steely, chastising, just like it'd been when he'd defended Lewis to the press before, and Lewis feels himself relaxing, leans back in his seat to enjoy the show.

**Author's Note:**

> also, i realized too far into writing this fic that i was imagining it to be summer when it would be winter in new york during the whole off-season stint in the beginning, bc i'm dumb like that and apparently have no concept of hemispheres and how the planet moves. i genuinely don't remember if it snowed in ny during dec/jan 2018, so i tried as best as possible to fix it and make it season-fitting without messing with the scenes, but c'est la vie, so just please imagine this happens in an au where the 2018 winter in ny was only kinda cold and not at all snowy lmao!


End file.
